


I Was Dancing When the Music Stopped

by martianwahtney



Series: Tony Stark Bingo IV [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Baking, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Slow Dancing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, WinterIron Reverse Bang, middle of the night meetings, slight angst (only for like a second)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-21 13:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30022275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martianwahtney/pseuds/martianwahtney
Summary: Tony stumbled upon Bucky baking in the middle of the night, things evolve from there
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: Tony Stark Bingo IV [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978531
Comments: 5
Kudos: 96
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV, WI Reverse Bang 2020





	I Was Dancing When the Music Stopped

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sagana_Rojana_Olt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sagana_Rojana_Olt/gifts).



> TSB:  
> Card: 4011  
> A1: Domesticity
> 
> [here is the magnificent art that inspired the fic!!!!](%E2%80%9C)

Tony blearily rubbed sleep from his eyes as he shuffled into the kitchen. According to JARVIS it was two o’clock in the morning which meant Tony had been working on SI projects for nearly 13 hours. To say he was tired was an understatement. He was on his way to the kitchen to get…  _ something _ before bed- he just couldn’t quite remember what it was he wanted. Certainly he wasn’t on his way to get coffee, right? That would just be counterproductive. He turned into the kitchen and stopped dead at the sight of Bucky Barnes cradling a large glass mixing bowl.

“Hey,” Tony said, not entirely sure what else to say. 

“Hey,”

“You’re… baking,”

“I am,”

“Huh,”

Tony blinked a few times before he nodded his head. His gaze slipped to the sink behind Bucky and- ah. Right. He wanted a glass of water before bed. 

Tony skirted around the baking assassin and opened a cabinet. He grabbed a glass and filled it with water and promptly downed it. 

Hopefully that one glass would keep JARVIS off his back for a bit. 

“Night Tasty Freeze,” Tony said without thinking. 

“Night Tin Man,”

It was another week before Tony stumbled into the kitchen at 2 am- again. Bucky was there once again, scooping cookie dough out of a bowl and onto a cookie sheet. 

“So it wasn’t a fluke,”

Bucky glanced up, a small smile on his face.

“No,”

Tony hummed.

“What kind of cookies?” Tony asked.

“Chocolate chip,”

“Mind if I stick around?”

“Don’ mind,”

And so the next time Tony found himself awake at 2am- whether from insomnia or workshop binges- he ended up in the kitchen with Bucky. 

“You know,” Bucky started softly.

“My ma loved bakin’. She’d always get me t’ help,” he said with a small smile. 

“Mama loved to cook, she loved the classic Italian dishes. Some nights she and Jarvis went to war over who would cook dinner that night- Edwin Jarvis, not ye ole AI,” Tony said. 

“ _ Sir _ ,”

Both Bucky and Tony snorted at the quiet protest.

“Jarvis’s wife, Ana, was the baker. She always tried to get me to help, but I was a disaster! I got flour on the ceiling once,”

Bucky’s eyebrows shot up. 

“I think I approached the bowl too suddenly, scared the flour,” 

Bucky laughed at the (albeit terrible) joke and Tony couldn’t help but smile at the sound. 

“Shit, doll, I think you’d be hard pressed to get flour on the ceilin’’ here,”

Tony looked up at the vaulted ceiling. 

“Is that a challenge, Frosty Freeze?” he asked with a grin. 

Bucky offered him the bowl, one eyebrow arched like he  _ really _ didn’t believe Tony was that much of a disaster with baking. 

Precisely two minutes and 18 seconds later both Tony and Bucky were covered in flour. For all of Bucky’s enhanced senses he still had absolutely no fucking clue how it had happened. 

Slowly blue eyes met brown and Bucky could see the genius was putting considerable effort into not laughing. 

“You definitely approached it too aggressively,”

They stared at each other for a moment longer before the laughter overtook them. It took entirely too long for their laughter to subside, and even longer still to be able to look at each other without giggling. 

Cleaning up the mess of flour was a pain. Tony decided it was a useless endeavor- the stuff was like glitter! It was everywhere!- and started to make plans to build some kind of bot specifically made to clean up flour spills. 

The one good thing that came from the cleaning was Bucky putting his hair up in a bun. The downside was that he used a fucking scrunchie. 

“Think that’s the last of it,” Bucky commented as he brushed off his hand. 

“The fantastic start and destruction of my baking career,”

Bucky snorted. 

“You can jus’ be the taste tester, alrigh’?”

Tony grinned at him. 

“Bring it on, Elsa,”

“Why the fuck is there flour in the  _ microwave _ ?”

Tony choked on his coffee, dark eyes flashing to Bucky who was eating his breakfast with the most ridiculous smirk on his face. 

“Who the fuck let Tony try to bake?” Rhodes asked, voice resigned. 

“ _ Honey bear _ !”

His betrayal was ruined by Bucky’s quiet laughter, his shoulders shaking slightly. 

“Shit, doll, how’d you manage that?”

“It’s my superpower,” Tony replied with a wink. 

Rhodes scoffed. 

“When we were in college-“

“Platypus don’t,” Tony whispered. 

“Don’t interrupt me, Tones, it’s rude. I’m trying to tell them about the Chem incident,”

“Which one?”

“The one where you almost blew up the classroom,”

“Sour patch, which time?”

“The one with the balloon,”

“And on that note! I have to clean out the microwave!” Tony said cheerily. 

“So basically, Tony and I…”

Tony ducked into the kitchen as Rhodes started to tell the truly unfortunate story. It wasn’t Tony’s fault chemistry was so explosive. Should he have been paying more attention to the professor? Probably! But he was an engineer!- not a chemist. Besides, he had only taken the damned class because Rhodes insisted branching out from engineering would be good to him. 

Rhodes had never been so wrong in his life. 

He had barely finished cleaning out the microwave- seriously how the fuck did flour get in there?- when he heard laughter from the dining room. 

“What the hell Tony?” he heard Bruce yell. 

“I’m an engineer, dammit, not a chemist!” he yelled back as he slammed the microwave door shut. 

“Sorry,” he said with a wince, giving it a soft pat. 

The microwave might not be sentient like the toaster was, but there was no way he was going to  _ not  _ apologize to it. 

He returned to the dining room to find Bruce shaking his head slightly, a fond yet exasperated smile on his face. 

“Rhodey talked me into taking the class,” he said petulantly. 

“An’ I bet it was Rhodes that kept you alive?” Bucky asked. 

“Absolutely,” Rhodes agreed. 

“Don’t act like you didn’t do stupid shit too, honey bear,” Tony muttered. 

“I do stupid shit all the time, Tones, I just don’t get caught,”

Tony rolled his eyes, a fond smile on his face. 

“There’s a Gala we have to attend,” Tony said quietly. 

“A Gala,” Bucky repeated.

“Some charity event, it looks good if all the Avengers show up,”

“So I need a suit,”

“Yea,”

Bucky made a noise in the back of his throat but didn’t otherwise comment. He held up a liquid measuring cup and squinted at it before he set it back down and added just a bit more milk. 

“How many Gala’s am I going to be required to attend?”

Tony shrugged. 

“Three to four a year? The big one is the September Foundation,”

They both froze for a moment, eyes meeting for just a moment before Bucky resumed mixing the ingredients for… fuck- what had he been baking?

Tony wondered if it was ethical to bring his mother’s assassin to a Gala in her honor. But there was also the fact that Bucky had been brainwashed and done the whole thing against his will and Maria Stark would probably be disappointed with Tony if he let a little brainwashing stand in the way of a Gala invite.

“That one is the one I’m afraid I insist on everyone being there for,” Tony said quietly. 

For the second time in barely three minutes, they met each other’s gazes. Tony offered him a smile and Bucky nodded. 

“Well if you insist,” he murmured. 

The Gala took up a lot of Tony’s time- mostly making sure  _ someone _ (Clint) went to his fittings and didn’t manage to find a way to get out of the Gala. It was a fun game they had been playing for the past year. Clint would try to get out of Gala’s and Tony would thwart his attempts. 

“ _ Sir _ ,” JARVIS said. 

“J please, I have everything ready for the Gala,” Tony whined. 

“ _ There is a teenager at the private elevator attempting to hack in _ ,”

Tony’s head shot up, his eyes narrowing slightly. 

“How’s he doing?”

“ _ Sir _ ,”

Tony grinned. 

“ _ He strikes me as familiar, sir, but I can’t seem to place him _ ,”

“Pull up footage,”

A holographic screen popped up in front of Tony, showing the feed from in front of the private elevator. There stood a teenager with fluffy, dirty blonde hair and a very sly smile on his face. 

“Harley fucking Keener,” Tony said softly. 

“ _ The boy from Rose Hill, Tennessee _ ?”

“The very same. Send a cab for him, J,”

“ _ Yes, sir _ ,”

Tony tinkered absentmindedly as he waited for Harley. It had been quite some time since he had even heard from Harley. The kid had been a fucking delight back then, and he had completely saved Tony’s ass.

The elevator opened with a ding and Tony turned to see Harley stepping out with a duffle bag in his hand. 

“You tried to  _ hack _ JARVIS?” Tony demanded. 

“I babysat him for a day, it’s fine,” Harley replied, a shit eating grin on his face. 

“I thought we were connected, how could you betray me like that?”

“Are you guilt tripping me?”

“Yes,”

Harley grinned at him. 

“So what brings you to my humble Tower, kid?” Tony asked. 

“Last I checked this was the Avenger’s Tower,” 

“Last I checked,” Tony mocked like the actual adult he claimed to be.

Harley did not look impressed. 

“So, aside from trying to hack my poor AI, what are you doing here? You’re not like running away, are you? I’m not equipped for this. We’ll have to talk to Rhodes,” Tony said in a rush.

Harley stared at him for a moment, somehow looking less impressed than before. 

“Fall semester starts in a few weeks. I’m hanging out here till then,”

“Fall semester?”

“For MIT,”

“You’re like 12!” Tony protested. 

“I’m 17,”

Tony blinked once. 

“Do you have a suit?”

“No?”

“You need a suit. There’s a Gala next week,”

“J! Get his measurements and put in a rush order!” Tony called. 

“What if I don’t  _ want _ to go to a Gala?”

“You come into  _ my  _ home, mock me, and disrespect  _ my _ Gala?” Tony demanded. 

Harley just grinned at him. 

“You don’t  _ have _ to go,” Tony conceded.

“I’ll hang out here with JARVIS,”

“J, you’re in charge,”

“ _ An honor, sir _ ,” JARVIS snarked. 

Tony had a feeling he was going to regret leaving the two alone for a night. 

The days leading up to the Gala were all a blur. The only bright points were the 2 am meetings Tony had with Bucky. Since the flour in the microwave incident, he hadn’t been allowed to help at all with the preparation of the goods. 

The day of the Gala came all too soon and Tony had to get all dressed up in his fancy suit and attend a Gala with the rest of the Avengers. 

Tony stepped out of the elevator and immediately pulled off his suit jacket, leaving him in neatly pressed grey pants, a grey waistcoat and a light blue shirt. 

Galas were the bane of his existence. Well- ok he liked the gala they had for the September foundation, and generally he only attended gala’s that supported his favored causes, but he still hated having to put on his media face and deal with stingy rich assholes. 

Tony stepped into the kitchen and immediately all the tension he had been carrying slipped away from him. Bucky was standing there in the dim light. He was still wearing his dress shirt and slacks from the gala that he had spent all of one hour at. (Tony couldn’t leave gala’s after only one hour or Pepper would give him hell about it). Bucky had a bowl cradled in his arms and he was stirring slowly, his body swaying to some old-timey song. 

Tony had never seen anything quite so beautiful as the sight before him. 

Bucky’s hair, which had earlier been up in a half ponytail, had been completely pulled up into a bun, secured with an orange scrunchie. The usual lines of tension that lined his face were gone- Tony noticed he always seemed more relaxed during their 2 am meetings. 

Bucky set the bowl down and held out his metal hand. His expression was open and vulnerable and Tony didn’t even stop and think before he placed his own hand in the cool metal one in front of him. 

Bucky pulled him close, their chests almost touching. Tony matched his sway with ease as Bucky dropped his hand, his metal arm instead wrapping around Tony’s waist, his hand pressed against the small of Tony’s back. 

Whatever song had been playing switched to something a little more upbeat. Before Tony could take a step back, Bucky grinned and easily pulled Tony into what Tony could only assume was a very basic style of Swing. Whatever it was, it had both of them laughing as Bucky spun Tony in and out. 

The song on the radio changed to something slower just as Bucky spun Tony back in. For a moment they stayed there, and then Bucky shifted, his metal hand once more on Tony’s back and slowly they started to sway. 

“How can I tell you what is in my heart?

How can I measure each and every part?

How can I tell you how much I love you?

How can I measure just how much I do?”

Tony didn’t know the song, but Bucky was quietly singing along as they swayed. 

“How much do I love you?”

Oh, Tony thought. 

“I'll tell you no lie,”

Oh. 

“How deep is the ocean?

How high is the sky?”

_ Oh _ . 

Bucky placed a finger under Tony’s chin and tilted his head up a little more. Bucky leaned toward him, capturing Tony’s lips in a chaste kiss. 

“How many times a day do I think of you?

How many roses are sprinkled with dew?”

They pulled away from each other and Tony settled his head in the crook of Bucky’s neck as they continued to dance. 

“How far would I travel

To be where you are?

How far is the journey

From here to a star?

And if I ever lost you

How much would I cry?

How deep is the ocean?

How high is the sky?”


End file.
